The present invention relates to a method and system for operating a vehicle by monitoring the head orientation and/or viewing direction of an operator by means of a camera device of a mobile control device.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
In recent years many efforts were undertaken and technical solutions have become known with which a vehicle, in particular a motor vehicle can be controlled autonomously.
In an autonomous control of a vehicle, which oftentimes is also referred to as “piloted driving”, the vehicle is moved predominantly by means of sensors and actuators (also referred to as actuating system) of the vehicle without a driver directly controlling the vehicle.
One example for piloted driving re parking-steering-assist systems, which enable an automatic parking and unparking of a vehicle.
For example, EP 1 249 379 A2 describes a method for maneuvering a motor vehicle into a target position, wherein the motor vehicle is brought into a starting position close to the desired target position, the environment of the motor vehicle is traced after a first activation by the driver, which tracing is continuous at least for detecting the target position, and the actual position of the vehicle is continuously determined, items of control information for maneuvering the motor vehicle into the target position ire determined by means of the determined environmental and positional information, after a second activation by the driver, control commands which depend on the control information are outputted to the drive train and/or the braking system and/or the steering of the motor vehicle, thereby causing the motor vehicle to drive into the target position independent of the driver.
DE 10 2009 051 463 A1 discloses a vehicle with associated external control device and a parking-steering-assist system including a control device situated in the motor vehicle is known, wherein the external control device is configured for communication with the control device of the motor vehicle, and the control device of the motor vehicle is configured for determining a positional information regarding the location of the driver and/or a target position set by the driver by taking the signals that have been transmitted during the communication into account, wherein an unparking procedure which is controlled by the control device of the motor vehicle can be carried out by taking the positional information to account.
Such autonomous or piloted driving processes of a (motor) vehicle require that the driver always has to be able to intervene in the process in particular to terminate the process. Thus, the already mentioned EP 1 249 379 A1 describes that an automatic parking and ranging process can be started and interrupted by means of a transmission device. The automatic parking or ranging process is only maintained so long as the driver maintains contact with the vehicle for example by pressing a parking or ranging button on the transmission device. When the button is released the parking and ranging process is immediately interrupted and the vehicle is automatically stopped. The transmission device can for example be integrated in the ignition key or in a mobile phone.
Further a driver assist device for a motor vehicle with a control device is known from DE 10 2009 041 587 A1 which is configured to output control signals to the drive and/or steering device of the motor vehicle which cause an automatic execution of the parking process, and to receive commands from a remote control and after receiving a pre-determined interruption command, to interrupt an already initiated parking process of the motor vehicle, wherein at least one camera which is coupled with the control device is provided for obtaining image data relating to a vicinity of the motor vehicle, wherein the control device is configured to send signals to the remote control which signals include the image data obtained by the camera and/or image data calculated from the signal. The driver is supported by this driver assist device during monitoring an autonomous parking procedure of the motor vehicle in that images relating to a vicinity of the motor vehicle are displayed to the driver on a display device of the portable or mobile remote control. The driver can thus see objects in the vicinity of the motor vehicle and as the case may be terminate the autonomous parking procedure in case of a dangerous situation.
The driver assist device known from DE 10 20009 041 587 A1 is disadvantageous in as far as a driver has to observe a relatively small display device in case of a mobile remote control and has to decide based on the representations displayed on the remote control whether a dangerous situation exists or not. However, due to the relatively small size of the display device, details of the recorded vicinity cannot or can only inaccurately be recognized. This situation is exacerbated in case of bright ambient light because in this case the displayed images and items of information are often not or only poorly recognizable.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide to provide an improved method and system for operating a vehicle